1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a multifunction peripheral including a fuser, to an image forming apparatus, to a method for controlling the image forming apparatus, to a program, and to a storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hitherto, a fuser is provided in an image forming apparatus, such as a laser-beam printer, which forms images on paper by electrophotography. The fuser includes a heater and heats a toner image on paper with the heater at a fusing temperature, thereby fusing the toner image to the paper.
In an image forming apparatus including such a fuser, heating of the fuser starts at substantially the same time as the power is turned on, and the temperature of the fuser is raised to the fusing temperature. When a certain period of time has elapsed after the completion of image formation, the image forming apparatus goes into sleep mode, where the temperature of the fuser is lowered to a predetermined temperature lower than the fusing temperature and is maintained. Low power consumption in sleep mode can thus be achieved. To return from sleep mode, heating of the fuser starts again and the temperature of the fuser is raised to a fusing temperature (see, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 7-251550).
A fuser is similarly controlled in a digital multifunction peripheral that performs multiple functions, such as faxing and data sending and receiving, in addition to copying and printing.
In a multifunction peripheral, fax sending and data sending operations require no image-forming operations, even if performed at power-on or at the time of returning from sleep mode. As such, the fuser is unnecessarily heated to reach the fusing temperature and power is wasted. In particular, if a fuser absorbing a large amount of heat is used, the amount of wasted power increases.
To minimize such waste of power, conditions of heating the fuser for each apparatus need to be changed depending on the usage environment of the apparatus, for example, the main types of functions to be performed and the frequency of use of each function. However, setting different heating conditions of a fuser for each apparatus cannot be easily achieved at the current technology level.